Chen Guangcheng

Chinaaid, VIa European Pressphoto Agency

News about Chen Guangcheng, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times.

Chronology of Coverage

May. 10, 2015

Sarah L Courteau reviews books The Barefoot Lawyer: A Blind Man’s Fight for Justice and Freedom in China by Chen Guangcheng, Hammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter by Nina MacLaughlin, Find the Good: Unexpected Life Lessons From a Small-Town Obituary Writer by Heather Lende and The Job: True Tales From the Life of a New York City Cop by Steve Osborne. MORE

Jan. 7, 2015

Chinese authorities arrest Guo Yushan, activist who aided in escape of rights advocate Chen Guangcheng from house arrest in 2012, and charge him with running illegal business. MORE

Oct. 3, 2013

Chen Guangcheng, blind Chinese legal activist whose headline-grabbing odyssey included an improbable escape from house arrest in China, a mad dash for refuge inside the United States Embassy in Beijing and several rocky months as a visiting scholar at New York University, has found a new job with Witherspoon Institute, conservative research group in New Jersey. MORE

Jul. 11, 2013

Chen Guangcheng, blind legal advocate who challenged Chinese government over its harsh family planning policies, finds himself enmeshed in controversies over partisan politics after a year in United States; backed by coterie of conservative figures, he has publicly accused New York University of bowing to Chinese pressure and prematurely ending his fellowship this summer. MORE

Jun. 25, 2013

Chen Guangcheng, blind legal activist who fled China with his family amid a diplomatic crisis in 2012, arrives in Taiwan for 18-day visit; during news conference, he praises Taiwanese democracy while refusing to talk about recent allegations that New York University, which had hosted him for past year, had been pressured by China to remove him. MORE

Jun. 22, 2013

Officials at New York University say several electronic devices given to Chen Guangcheng, Chinese legal advocate, were loaded with spyware designed to track his family's movement and their online activity during his fellowship there; Chen says discovery of tracking software comes as a complete surprise. MORE

Jun. 17, 2013

Chen Guangcheng, dissident legal advocate whose escape from house arrest to American Embassy in Beijing provoked diplomatic crisis in 2012, says he is being forced to leave New York University over concerns that his activism is harming university's relationship with China. MORE

Jun. 8, 2013

Wang Jinxiang and Chen Guangfu, mother and brother of Chen Guangcheng, prominent Chinese rights advocate who fled to United States in 2012, are granted Chinese passports, allowing them to start applying for visas to see him; granting of passports appears to be a concession made by Chinese government in prelude to summit meeting between Pres Xi Jinping and Pres Obama. MORE

Apr. 25, 2013

Chinese prosecutors order two relatives of exiled human rights advocate Chen Guangcheng to face questioning over allegations that they assisted him following his escape from detention in China; move is seen as latest retaliation against Chen's family following his stepped-up criticism of government. MORE

Mar. 14, 2013

Chinese human rights advocate Chen Guangcheng says that his family remains under surveillance almost a year after his daring escape to America from detention in his home village; Chen adds that his jailed nephew has been beaten and warned by officials not to challenge his conviction. MORE

Jun. 19, 2012

Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng reveals in an interview that he is still angry at the Beijing government for failing to investigate the local officials who persecuted him, and that despite the comfortable life he and his family have settled into in New York City, he remains desperately worried about the harsh treatment of those they left behind in China. MORE

Jun. 8, 2012

Security has been lightened at the village in which Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng lived under house arrest for nearly two years. MORE

Jun. 1, 2012

Chen Guangcheng, the blind Chinese activist whose daring escape from his village began an odyssey that brought him to the United States, gives speech at New York University expressing optimism about the future of legal rights in China. MORE

May. 28, 2012

Chen Guangfu, older brother of persecuted rights advocate Chen Guangcheng who left China for the United States, is back in the family’s home village after evading guards there to travel to Beijing to meet with lawyer Ding Xikui. MORE

May. 25, 2012

Chen Guangfu, a brother of Chinese legal activist Chen Guangcheng, slips through the security cordon around his village and makes his way to Beijing to advocate on behalf of his son, who is jailed there on attempted homicide charges after attacking several plainclothes officers who had broken into the family home. MORE

May. 25, 2012

Chinese dissident lawyer Chen Guangcheng, after his arrival in New York, expresses concern over what he calls intensifying retribution against his family and friends in China who aided his escape, especially his nephew Chen Kegui, who has been jailed and apparently faces charges of attempted murder. MORE

May. 20, 2012

Chen Guangcheng, the blind legal advocate who recently sought refuge in the American Embassy in Beijing, arrives safely in New York City's Greenwich Village; holds impromptu open-air news conference following his arrival, thanking Chinese officials for allowing him to leave the country. MORE

May. 17, 2012

Chen Guangcheng, the Chinese activist who incited a diplomatic crisis by fleeing into the American Embassy in Beijing in April, fills out a Chinese passport application, moving forward in his bid to study in the United States MORE

May. 15, 2012

Family members and lawyers of activist Chen Guangcheng still living in his home village of Donqshigu, in eastern China, are being harassed by local leaders despite the fact that the central government has said he is free; ill-treatment of Chen's relatives highlights how the Communist government’s system for dealing with dissidents is geared toward allowing local leaders to ignore the law, with Beijing’s sometimes silent assent. MORE

May. 14, 2012

Bill Keller Op-Ed column asserts that the case of Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng offers a good occasion to contemplate the tension between America's respect for human rights and its need to deal with undemocratic regimes. MORE

May. 13, 2012

Bob Fu, a Chinese-born pastor who started the dissident group ChinaAid, was instrumental in calling attention to the plight of the activist Chen Guangcheng; Fu is coordinating a growing movement among American Christians to work for religious freedom in China. MORE

May. 13, 2012

Op-Ed article by history Prof Samuel Moyn maintains that dissidents like Chen Guangcheng and his Western supporters must face the fact that the once pure ideal of human rights is much harder to separate from the impure world of daily policy making, international power and unfulfilled hopes. MORE

May. 11, 2012

Family members and lawyers representing Chen Guangcheng are facing increased harassment from Chinese police and government officials despite a deal brokered to help Chen, a blind legal and human rights activist who escaped house arrest and sought refuge in the American Embassy. MORE

May. 9, 2012

Days of drama preceded the agreement between the United States and China in the case of blind dissident Chen Guangcheng, who is expected to leave China to study in the US; officials familiar with the events say that the negotiations reflected a maturing relationship that is able to weather a fraught diplomatic entanglement. MORE

May. 9, 2012

Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng announces that Chinese authorities have begun to assist him in applying for permission to travel to the United States; some negotiators on Chen's behalf have questioned whether China will follow through on agreement to allow him to emigrate. MORE

May. 9, 2012

Op-Ed article by Jeffrey H Smith, former State Department assistant legal adviser, reflects on his experiences dealing with cases involving defectors and dissidents to shed light on case of Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng; says Obama administration may have made some missteps in handling Chen's case, but in the end the solution seems a good one. MORE

May. 6, 2012

News analysis on the circumstances surrounding Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng; describes his work to prevent forced abortion and sterilization and the travails it has brought him, and welcomes the media attention the story has garnered. MORE

May. 5, 2012

China and the United States reach a deal that calls for dissident Chen Guangcheng to travel to the United States with his family; compromise ends an eight-day diplomatic crisis that had threatened to strain the relationship between the two countries, but it is unlikely to silence accusations that the Obama administration bungled the case by handing Chen over to the Chinese without assurances that he would be safe. MORE

May. 5, 2012

Chinese government agrees to allow blind dissident Chen Guangcheng to apply to leave for the United States on a student visa; China is generally pleased to see its most nettlesome dissidents go into exile, where they almost invariably lose their ability to grab headlines in the West and to command widespread sympathy both in China and abroad. MORE

May. 5, 2012

Editorial welcomes news that, after frantic diplomacy and political roiling, the Chinese government may allow the blind dissident Chen Guangcheng to travel to the United States on a student visa; contends that the Chen's harrowing odyssey is an embarrassment for China and a glaring reminder of the country's abysmal mistreatment of its own citizens. MORE

May. 4, 2012

Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng’s abrupt reversal and plea for protection from the United States has deepened a diplomatic crisis and exposed the Obama administration to criticism; as the State Department tried frantically to reassess the options for Chen, who is at a hospital in Beijing being treated for an injured foot, senior American officials privately acknowledge missteps in the handling of the case. MORE

May. 4, 2012

Chinese citizens are forced to tread carefully when discussing online Chen Guangcheng, the blind human rights activist who sought refuge at the United States Embassy; China's government, which is struggling with its own political scandals, seeks to avoid official mention of the international diplomatic incident that has incited a global debate over the country's human rights policies. MORE

May. 4, 2012

American officials say their annual summit meeting on strategic and economic issues with China has resulted in tangible economic concessions; Chinese policy makers will commit to removing advantageous financing and regulatory conditions to state-owned enterprises; case of Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng has overshadowed the dialogue, but separate diplomatic negotiations continue. MORE

May. 3, 2012

Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, in a series of dramatically conflicting developments, leaves American custody at the embassy in Beijing for treatment in a hospital in a deal that American officials hail as a breakthrough because it will fulfill his wish to live safely in China; the blind human rights lawyer's friends question the viability of any Chinese promises to allow him to live openly in China, and Chen later says his decision to give up American protection was not fully voluntary. MORE

May. 3, 2012

New details of intrigue, heroics and ultimately what some people involved called a betrayal emerge from the 10-day saga of Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, the blind rights lawyer who escaped house arrest in Shandong Province and subsequently left protection of the American embassy in Beijing; tale does not have a clear ending, with Chen expressing fears about his safety if he remains in China; it is likely to endure as one of the most dramatic episodes in history of relations between the United States and China. MORE

May. 2, 2012

Obama administration's strong stand on international human rights faces a public test as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrives in China for a wide-ranging economic and strategic dialogue; trip is likely to be overshadowed by the case of Chen Guangcheng, who escaped house arrest and has sought protection at the American embassy in Beijing. MORE

May. 1, 2012

Pres Obama gently prods China to improve its record on human rights, while declining to discuss Chen Guangcheng, blind lawyer who escaped house arrest; administration officials believe silence on the matter is their best chance to resolve the case, given the embarrassment Chen's escape has already caused Chinese leaders, who bristle at anything they perceive as foreign interference; both sides appear eager to avoid a standoff that could mar relations and, most immediately, eclipse upcoming annual talks. MORE

May. 1, 2012

Editorial urges the United States to use all of its influence with China to ensure the safety of Chen Guangcheng, a blind Chinese human rights activist who has escaped from house arrest and sought refuge with the Americans. MORE

Apr. 30, 2012

Obama administration rushes to contain a growing diplomatic crisis between the United States and China, sending a senior diplomat to Beijing to discuss the fate of a blind dissident who escaped house arrest; amid intense secrecy, including a nearly blanket refusal to comment, the administration seeks to negotiate for the safety of the dissident, Chen Guangcheng, who is said to be in American hands in Beijing, though it is unclear whether he is in the embassy, in a diplomatic residence, or somewhere else. MORE

Apr. 29, 2012

Daring rush to freedom from house arrest by Chen Guangcheng, one of China's best-known dissidents, was made possible by a small network of people, risking detention, who used code to elude a pervasive surveillance apparatus; friends of Chen's, who are calling the escape a miracle, say he is inside the American Embassy in Beijing, which would create a diplomatic headache for the United States just days before a scheduled visit by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. MORE

Apr. 29, 2012

Diplomatic Memo; escape of Chen Guangcheng, a blind human rights lawyer, from house arrest and apparently into the hands of American officials in China, comes at an awkward time for the Chinese leadership; at the same time the issue could redound to the benefit of hard-liners, who may see his escape as part of a conspiracy to embarrass China that involves the United States; the timing of the incident has not escaped notice, coming as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is scheduled to arrive for a conference on security and economic issues, MORE

Apr. 28, 2012

Dramatic escape of blind human rights lawyer and dissident Chen Guangcheng from house arrest in Dongshigu, China, represents a significant public relations challenge for the Chinese government; Chen made his way to Beijing, where he is believed to have found refuge in the American Embassy, posing a major diplomatic test for the United States as it seeks to improve a charged relationship with China. MORE

Dec. 16, 2011

American actor Christian Bale is assaulted by government-backed guards in China when he tries to visit Chen Guangcheng, a blind lawyer who has been illegally confined to his home in eastern Shandong Province and who has become a focus of China's human rights advocates. MORE

Nov. 1, 2011

Human rights activists are criticizing a Hollywood studio Relativity Media's deal to film a new feature in Shandong Province, where Chen Guangcheng, dissident lawyer, is under house arrest. MORE

Oct. 25, 2011

Dozens of people in China continue to try to visit Chen Guangcheng, rights lawyer who has been under house arrest with his wife and daughter since completing four-year, three-month prison term in September 2010. MORE

Oct. 19, 2011

Human rights activists report that former trickle of would-be visitors attempting to visit Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, under house arrest in eastern Shandong Province, has become a campaign, with dozens of admirers from across China embarking on journey. MORE

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Chen Guangcheng, a human rights advocate from China who fled to the United States, did not have his smartphone and tablet compromised by spyware, New York University said more than a year after making the assertion.